TAE #627 and suffering

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agnosticatheist
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TAE #627 and suffering

Post #1

Post by agnosticatheist »

I was watching a clip from the atheist experience, episode #627, and it got me thinking.

At the end, the caller was talking about why more, the same, or less suffering should be sought.

I thought that matt and don's response was not sufficient.

Sure, generally, it's in your best interest to minimize other people's suffering. But, there might be cases where other people's suffering is inconsequential to your self-interest, or where other people's suffering is in your best interest. How do you address those cases?

For example, let's say I see my neighbor struggling to build a fence. The project is obviously causing him suffering. Now, he doesnt know that im aware of his suffering. My girlfriend just texted me and asked me about coming over for some afternoon sex.

What do I do? Help the neighbor or have sex with my girlfriend?

In this case, why should I care about my neighbor's suffering?

There is no major potential kickback for me down the road if I help him. The only reason that I might help him is guilt. But what if I dont feel guilty? Or what if I do feel guilty but ignore the feeling and choose to have sex with my girlfriend? From what i have seen, the typical atheist response would probably be "well you are a deplorable individual".

First, what is your basis for labeling and making a valuation of me as a person, and said valuation being "deplorable"? I dont see how it can be anything other than subjective AND arbitrary.

Second, why does it matter if I feel guilty or not, or feel guilty and repress the guilty feeling? Sometimes it seems as if merely asking the question "why should I care about other people's suffering" means that I necessarily dont care about other people's suffering. You have to have a reason, or reasons, for caring about other people's suffering. Because atheists dont appeal to divine morality, they are forced to provide logical reasoning for their moral positions and actions. When atheists argue that you are a crappy person if you dont care about other people's suffering, they are still making an appeal to morality, it's just their individual morality, which may or may not be similar or identical to the individual morality of other humans. But at the end of the day, it's their individual morality and has no meaning and no validity beyond them. If someone doesnt accept it, oh well. You can complain about it, judge them, etc, but intellectually, your morality has no power.

Third, why should me or anyone else care about what your judgement and valuation of me is? The only way you could get me to care about it is by trying to manipulate me via trying to make me feel guilty for not helping my neighbor and/or by affecting matters such that it is in my best interest to accept your morality (by holding a gun to my head, for example). But even in the second method, I still may not have internally accepted your morality, im just externally accepting your morality so I dont get shot.

If you want to call someone a deplorable individual, go ahead, but just realize thats your subjective and arbitrary valuation, which has no meaning and validity outside of you. The only way to get someone who doesnt accept your morality to care about your morality is by attempting to guilt-trip them into behaving according to your morality, or by affecting matters such that it is in their best interest to behave according to your morality. Life is a battle of wills and agendas. Every human is for themselves; friend against friend, brother against sister, enemy against enemy.

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Re: TAE #627 and suffering

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Post by Divine Insight »

agnosticatheist wrote: For example, let's say I see my neighbor struggling to build a fence.
My first question would be. Why is your neighbor building a fence? Does he "need" a fence? If so, why? Why he feels that he "needs" a fence would be an important factor in whether or not I feel that I should help him.
agnosticatheist wrote: The project is obviously causing him suffering. Now, he doesnt know that im aware of his suffering. My girlfriend just texted me and asked me about coming over for some afternoon sex.

What do I do? Help the neighbor or have sex with my girlfriend?
My second question: Did the neighbor even request your help? Maybe your neighbor would rather do things on his own in spite of his apparent suffering?

I do a lot of things on my own that are indeed very hard work. I even have health problems which makes things worse. This doesn't mean that I necessarily want other people to come and do my work for me.
agnosticatheist wrote: In this case, why should I care about my neighbor's suffering?
Like I say, what does he need a fence for in the first place? The reason he feels that he needs to build a fence could be a factor in how sorry I might feel for him.
agnosticatheist wrote: There is no major potential kickback for me down the road if I help him. The only reason that I might help him is guilt.
Why should you feel guilty? In what way are you responsible for what your neighbor thinks he "needs"?
agnosticatheist wrote: But what if I don't feel guilty? Or what if I do feel guilty but ignore the feeling and choose to have sex with my girlfriend? From what i have seen, the typical atheist response would probably be "well you are a deplorable individual".
You wouldn't get that from me. If I had the choice between helping my neighbor build a fence or having sex with my girlfriend I'd definitely choose the latter too. Since when is it my responsibility to insure that all my neighbors achieve whatever projects they have set out to do?

If I took that attitude I wouldn't have time to live my own life since I would necessarily need to be helping all my neighbors achieve their difficult goals instead of working on my own goals.

Also, having sex with my girlfriend might be an important goal for me. After all, if I ignore her I could end up living a very lonely life when she runs off and finds someone who's more sympathetic to HER GOALS.

Then I would be suffering through a life devoid of of loving partner. What are my neighbors going to do about that? Are they going to come over and offer to make love with me? :-k
agnosticatheist wrote: First, what is your basis for labeling and making a valuation of me as a person, and said valuation being "deplorable"? I dont see how it can be anything other than subjective AND arbitrary.
I didn't watch the episode of The Atheist Experience that you are referring to. Nor to I support or agree with everything that Matt Dillahunty says.

I personally wouldn't make any judgement on you at all for tending to the love of your life rather than assuming that your neighbor might want your help when he didn't even request it.

In fact, I wouldn't even blame you if you turned down your neighbor's request to help him build a fence. Why should you risk a potential life of loneliness just to help your neighbor build a fence?

You have your own life to live.
agnosticatheist wrote: Second, why does it matter if I feel guilty or not, or feel guilty and repress the guilty feeling? Sometimes it seems as if merely asking the question "why should I care about other people's suffering" means that I necessarily dont care about other people's suffering. You have to have a reason, or reasons, for caring about other people's suffering. Because atheists dont appeal to divine morality, they are forced to provide logical reasoning for their moral positions and actions. When atheists argue that you are a crappy person if you dont care about other people's suffering, they are still making an appeal to morality, it's just their individual morality, which may or may not be similar or identical to the individual morality of other humans. But at the end of the day, it's their individual morality and has no meaning and no validity beyond them. If someone doesnt accept it, oh well. You can complain about it, judge them, etc, but intellectually, your morality has no power.
How about this solution:

Offer to help your neighbor build his fence when you have the FREE TIME?

What's wrong with that?

Why should you have to interrupt your plans to fit his schedule? :-k
agnosticatheist wrote: Third, why should me or anyone else care about what your judgement and valuation of me is? The only way you could get me to care about it is by trying to manipulate me via trying to make me feel guilty for not helping my neighbor and/or by affecting matters such that it is in my best interest to accept your morality (by holding a gun to my head, for example). But even in the second method, I still may not have internally accepted your morality, im just externally accepting your morality so I dont get shot.
Seem to me that you're suggesting that Matt Dillahunty was pretty much judging people who don't offer to drop what they have planned and rush over to help their neighbors who didn't even ask for help?

If that's the case, then I definitely do not agree with Matt Dillahunty on that point.
agnosticatheist wrote: If you want to call someone a deplorable individual, go ahead, but just realize thats your subjective and arbitrary valuation, which has no meaning and validity outside of you. The only way to get someone who doesnt accept your morality to care about your morality is by attempting to guilt-trip them into behaving according to your morality, or by affecting matters such that it is in their best interest to behave according to your morality. Life is a battle of wills and agendas. Every human is for themselves; friend against friend, brother against sister, enemy against enemy.
Your entire post sounds like nothing more than a rant against something Matt Dillahunty had said in one of his broadcasts.

Does this really belong in philosophy? Seems like more of a "Random Rambling" to me.

If I had the option between having sex with my girlfriend or helping my neighbor build a fence you can be absolutely assured that my neighbor would be building his fence all by himself, and I would have absolutely no feelings of remorse or guilt about that at all.

And this is especially true if my neighbor was married and already had a wife of his own.

Why should I risk potentially losing my girlfriend by placing my neighbor above her. The girl wants to have sex with me and I'm going to tell her, "No thanks, I'd rather go next door and help my neighbor build a fence".

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if I never heard from her again!

Why should I place my love life in such peril to help my neighbor reach his goals?

I don't see the justification in that. That would be nothing short of stupid on my behalf, IMHO.

For me this isn't even a question of morality, it's a question of stupidity. To tell a girl who just asked you to have sex with her that you would rather go help your neighbor build a fence would probably be the deepest insult you could ever stab her with.

I don't think I would risk causing her such great emotional pain and suffering by rejecting her like that. I would rather tend to her "needs" instead of the "needs" of my neighbor. ;)

After all, she's my neighbor too!
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Re: TAE #627 and suffering

Post #3

Post by agnosticatheist »

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

Im actually a big fan of matt and TAE. lol

My post definitely was not supposed to be a huge rant against what he said.

I did have questions in my post.

I agree with most if not all of what you said.

Let me try a different scenario for you. Let's say you could donate $1,000 to a charity that works to minimize suffering or keep it for yourself and buy a bicycle you have been wanting to buy. What do you do?

Atheists want to talk about how suffering is bad and that it should be minimized.

Why is it bad and why should it be minimized?

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Re: TAE #627 and suffering

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Post by Divine Insight »

agnosticatheist wrote: Let me try a different scenario for you. Let's say you could donate $1,000 to a charity that works to minimize suffering or keep it for yourself and buy a bicycle you have been wanting to buy. What do you do?
You're certainly asking the wrong person in me to be sure.

Actually, I would be more apt to donate the money from an atheistic perspective than from a religious perspective.

Why? Well, if there is no God, then it's clearly up to us humans to help each other. At least in the sense that if we don't do it, it's not going to be done.

On the other hand, if there is a God, and God designed the world, then why should I need to donate $1000 to change the conditions that God had created? Why doesn't God change things himself if he wants things to be better.

In fact, if there exists a God and someone is suffering, why should I think that this is anything other than "God's Will"?

In some sense the very idea that a God exists is far more problematic than a world where there is no God.
agnosticatheist wrote: Atheists want to talk about how suffering is bad and that it should be minimized.

Why is it bad and why should it be minimized?
Well, if there is no God, then the ONLY people who can do something about suffering is us.

Why is suffering bad, and why should it be minimized?

Well, suffering is bad because no one likes to suffer. So this should be a self-evident truth that every human has personal experience with.

So the "badness" of suffering is a human judgement call. Humans typically don't like to suffer unless they are some sort of masochists which most humans would deem to be unusual or "abnormal".

Why should we work toward minimizing suffering?

I think there are several obvious reasons.

1. Most humans naturally feel empathy toward anyone who is suffering, including even animals. Most humans don't even like to see an animal suffer and would relieve its suffering if possible.

2. Working toward minimizing the suffering of others is actually beneficial to the self. It can be a selfish endeavor in the end.

For example, if a person contributes to setting up an organization, hospital, or soup kitchen, etc, for others who are in need, their very action may actually result in providing them a place to go when they are in need.

So tending to the issues of suffering on Earth in general is not an altogether self-less act.

3. Many people actually find it very uplifting and personally satisfying to help others. So by helping others they are actually serving their own desire to feel good about themselves.

Helping to reduce suffering in the world isn't necessarily a selfless act. And this is especially true of parents who have children. They want to see their children living in a safe world that has little risk of suffering, so contributing to such a world benefits the future of their immediate loved ones.

There's lot of reasons to want to live in a world where suffering is reduced as much as possible.

Just because a person doesn't believe in a God doesn't mean that they should no longer give a hoot about suffering.
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Re: TAE #627 and suffering

Post #5

Post by Divine Insight »

agnosticatheist wrote: Im actually a big fan of matt and TAE. lol
Just for the record, I like Matt Dillahunty too. I think he's a good bloke and means well. I've watched a lot of his debates and the TAE show.

Just the same, I don't necessarily agree with every position he takes. ;)
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Re: TAE #627 and suffering

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Post by agnosticatheist »

Divine Insight wrote:In fact, if there exists a God and someone is suffering, why should I think that this is anything other than "God's Will"?
Some christians would argue that it's God's will for the person to be suffering initially but then it's also God's desire for you to help the person suffering. So, sometimes stuff that happens is God's will and is orchestrated by him, and other times stuff happens that is up to us.
Well, suffering is bad because no one likes to suffer. So this should be a self-evident truth that every human has personal experience with.
No individual likes to suffer (unless, as you said below, they are some sort of masochist, and even in that case, if they enjoy it, is it really suffering...?). That doesn't mean that we necessarily care nor should care if other people suffer.
1. Most humans naturally feel empathy toward anyone who is suffering, including even animals. Most humans don't even like to see an animal suffer and would relieve its suffering if possible.
*Most* humans naturally feel empathy toward anyone who is suffering. It's the humans who don't who can create a problem here. Are they wrong if they don't empathize and then act to minimize suffering? You personally might think so, but your morality is individual and has no power beyond you.
2. Working toward minimizing the suffering of others is actually beneficial to the self. It can be a selfish endeavor in the end.
Not necessarily. There might be situations where the suffering of another human is of no consequence to a given individual, or is even beneficial to a given individual.
Helping to reduce suffering in the world isn't necessarily a selfless act.
I was never arguing that it is? Lol
Just because a person doesn't believe in a God doesn't mean that they should no longer give a hoot about suffering.
I never said they shouldn't. I am asking why they should.

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Re: TAE #627 and suffering

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Post by agnosticatheist »

Divine Insight wrote:
agnosticatheist wrote: Im actually a big fan of matt and TAE. lol
Just for the record, I like Matt Dillahunty too. I think he's a good bloke and means well. I've watched a lot of his debates and the TAE show.

Just the same, I don't necessarily agree with every position he takes. ;)
Yeah. He has said pretty much the same, he doesn't agree with every atheist on every issue.

I really like and appreciate that he is more into hardcore philosophy than a lot of atheists seem to be.

If you don't mind sharing, which of his positions do you disagree with?

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Re: TAE #627 and suffering

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agnosticatheist wrote: If you don't mind sharing, which of his positions do you disagree with?
Well, I'm not sure. I can't recall anything specific right off hand. But I do know that I have not always been in agreement with his positions when watching his debates. So I'm certain there are issues where I would disagree.

I wouldn't mind debating him on various issues. Although overall, we'd pretty much be in agreement on most things.
agnosticatheist wrote: You personally might think so, but your morality is individual and has no power beyond you.
I absolutely agree with this statement. I fully support that my moral values are indeed my own personal views and opinions. And I don't hold them up as being anything more than this.

Does Matt Dillahunty argue for "Absolute Moral Values"?

If he does, then that's certainly a point where I would disagree with him.

This is an issue I would debate with Sam Harris as well. Sam Harris argues that morality could be reduced to a pure scientific philosophy. And this can lead to a conclusion of some sort of absolute objective morality that is independent of human opinion.

I'm not sold on the idea that such a concept is possible. To begin with we have the initial problem that Sam Harris begins with the premise that morality should have something to do with human happiness, or well-being. That's already beginning with a personal opinion, IMHO.

I would actually enjoy very much having a conversation with Sam Harris, or Matt Dillahunty on this topic. Especially if either one of them wants to support an idea of "Absolute Objective Morality".

There's another caveat to this as well.

In addition to Sam Harris' required premise that morality must be based on human happiness, or well-being, there is also the question of whether or not every single action would even qualify as necessarily being absolutely moral or absolutely immoral.

To be fair, I think Sam Harris has taken the position that some actions are more likely to be amoral. In other words, they are neither moral nor immoral, but instead they are simply inapplicable to the concept of morality altogether.

And don't forget Sam Harris' definition of morality is that which make humans happy or contributes to their well-being. But that's already using a personal opinion as the foundational premise.

In religious circles, the foundation premise is based upon what supposedly makes some supreme God happy. So Sam Harris has simply taken that idea and moves it over directly to humans instead of placing it on a God.

Another problem with Harris' absolute morality is that it is indeed focused on humans. Where does the happiness of other animals come into the picture here? Would it then be "moral" for me to torture my cat since no humans are being harmed in the process?

~~~~~

I simply reject the concept of "Absolute Objective Morality" entirely and I'm quite happy and content with simply stating that I have my own subjective moral values, and everyone else is more than welcome to have theirs.

That seems to me to be a far better approach to the concept of morality.
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